As I was
walking out the door, I bumped into Bipolar and his wife, Lois; we exchanged
greetings and Bipolar offered to give me a ride back to the Motel 6. I
told him, “Thanks,” but I first wanted to grab a bite to eat at the McDonald's
next door. However, I told him if he would be willing to take my resupply
box back to my room, while there he and his wife were welcome to take a shower.
(Bipolar and his wife were camping out.) He agreed and we met later
at the McDonald's Restaurant, where he gave me back my room key.
South
Lake Tahoe was a very busy tourist town with many motels, condos, restaurants,
grocery stores, and equipment rental business for water sports, i.e., jet skis,
water skis, etc. The beaches were crowded with young adults and parents
with children, and the traffic along the main drag – Highway 50, was clogged
with pickup trucks towing boat trailers, with or without boats, and pedestrians
– mostly twentyish kids in swimming attire going to and from their vehicles
parked alongside of the road.
Sorting
through my resupply box was routine now; I emptied the contents on the bed and
make rows of food items corresponding to the number of days I expected to be on
the trail until my next resupply drop. If it were seven days, then I made
seven rows, placing the dinner packets at the top of the row, followed by lunch
and breakfast packets; then I allocated the snacks to each row, making sure the
quantities were equal for each day.
I always
seem to end up with more food than I needed for the next section of hiking, so
rather than throw the food away, if there were a hiker box available, I would
put the food in the box, and if not, I left it on top of the room table, in
hopes the cleaning maids would see it as valuable food and take it rather than
dumping it in the garbage.
There was
a grocery store across the street from my motel, and I went there several times
to buy comfort food – cookies, milk, chocolate pudding, as well as food items I
may need for the journey – tortillas, peanut butter and/or jam, cans of
Spam. I found a piece of cardboard and made my sign for tomorrow
morning’s hitchhike out of town. It read, Echo Lake Resort. I was
heading back to the same place I had exited the trail yesterday.
I was
anxious to be on my way, so at four in the morning I was up and moving, and by
five began my roadwalk back to the highway junction leading out of town.
I arrived at the junction at 5:30 a.m., with hopes of making some
last-minute purchases at a large supermarket, however, they didn’t open until
six - so much for my early start. I waited patiently in front of the
store, watching employees arrive as well as vendors carrying in food stuffs,
and the occasional early morning customer who was looking for fresh donuts and
their morning coffee.
When the
doors finally opened, I entered, quickly found what I needed, plus a
cheese-covered bagel for breakfast, paid for my purchases and went back to the
highway, where I hoisted my sign and stuck out my thumb. It would be two
and a half hours before I would get a ride, the longest I ever had to wait.
The ride
that stopped for me was a young lady driving a Mini Cooper that was crammed
full of stuff from her college dorm. She was headed home to the Bay Area
from her school. I’m six foot three and don’t normally fit in a Mini
Cooper, but I wasn’t about to turn down this ride. The young girl moved
her belongings from off the passenger seat, I stooped and folded myself into
the tiny compartment comprising the passenger seat and held my backpack on my
lap, and away we went.
She was a
very nice girl and quick with conversation; it always intrigued me why a single
girl traveling alone, and in this case driving a tiny car already filled to the
ceiling with personal belongings, would stop and offer a total stranger, even a
male, a ride. When I asked her this question, she said she just felt
impressed to do so. I wasn’t about to argue with that answer, and just
chalked it up to another tender mercy shown to me by my Heavenly Father.
The Mini-Cooper is a very small car, but I was grateful for the ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment